Our Infinite Universe

Hello, I am Charles and science is awesome! This blog is strictly for science, so follow me for all things science! Feel free to ask me sciencey questions as well. If there isn't anything about a particular field that you are interested in that I've reblogged or posted about, let me know.

[universally-awesome]

Hey guys!

So sorry that I haven't updated this blog with any sciencey goodness for a while! With winter break around the corner, I hope to be posting more content on this blog and share some great scientific discoveries and advancements as we move into 2015. Check back in the next week or two, and I should have a couple posts about the comet landing, New Horizons, and other topics!

[universally-awesome]

Ebola: Will you catch it?

Here lately, no matter where you are, you most likely can't make it through the day without someone freaking out about Ebola. This all started back in December 2013 when the first reported case occurred in Guinea. Over the next few months, the virus spread rapidly across Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia and then the first person with Ebola was diagnosed in the United States on 30 September. This has caused some fear amongst American citizens that this will become a national pandemic despite there only being 3 reported cases in the US as of 8 November 2014. When concerned about Ebola and your risk of catching it, keep the following in mind:

Ebola can only be transmitted by bodily fluids of an infected person such as their blood, vomit, mucus, saliva, urine, feces, semen, etc. making direct contact on your eyes, nose, mouth, or an open cut, wound, or abrasion

Ebola can not be contracted by coughing or sneezing unless droplets of mucus or saliva come into direct contact with your face

All reported cases of Ebola in the United States are being closely monitored inside hospitals

If you have not traveled to an area majorly affected by this outbreak recently, your chances of catching Ebola are extremely low

Pets such as dogs and cats have not been known to catch Ebola or spread it to other animals or humans. This is true even in major Ebola-stricken areas

However, if you have to go to, or are in an Ebola-stricken area, make sure to keep these things in mind too:

Practice safe hygiene. Wash and/or sanitize your hands and try not to come into contact with bodily fluids

Don't touch objects that may have come into contact with an infected person's bodily fluids such as clothes, bedding, needles, and other medical equipment

Avoid funerals or burial rituals that involve touching the body of someone who has died from Ebola

Avoid contact with nonhuman primates and bats as well as their blood, fluids, or raw meat

After you return, monitor your health for 21 days, and if you experience symptoms such as vomiting, severe headache, fever, diarrhea, muscle pain, fatigue, weakness, stomach pain, or unexplained hemorrhages, go to a doctor immediately

While Ebola will most likely not be a major problem in America, it is still a problem in West Africa. Nearly 5,000 deaths have been reported of the over 13,000 cases in West Africa, and people over there need help. You can donate money to the CDC, UNICEF, or the Red Cross to aid health workers currently working to eradicate the disease. Stay healthy!

Sources:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1411100?query=featured_home&#t=articleBackground

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29453719

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/united-states-imported-case.html

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/qas.html

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/qas-pets.html

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/prevention/index.html

[scishow]

World’s Most Asked Questions: How Much Water Should I Drink a Day? 

People ask Google everything under the sun. One of the most commonly searched questions in the world is “How much water should I drink a day?” SciShow has the answer!

[edwardspoonhands]

HANK. EBOLA IS IN NEW YORK. I AM IN NEW YORK. WHAT DO I DO?!?!

Here’s a handy guide for everyone in New York (and also the rest of the world) for what to do now that there is another person in America with ebola.

Be thankful that there are people as kind and selfless as Dr. Craig Spencer who are willing to risk their lives to help sick people and end the ebola epidemic.

Remember that people who don’t have symptoms aren’t contagious.

And also that people who contract ebola in the US recover more than 90% of the time, making it less dangerous than bacterial meningitis.

Be hopeful that Dr. Spencer makes a full recovery.

Be conscious that, as long as this epidemic continues in West Africa, there will continue to be cases in the U.S., but they do not post a threat to our country because the disease isn’t very contagious.

Wish that you were as selfless and brave as Dr. Spencer.

[universally-awesome]

Partial Solar Eclipse of 23 October 2014

On Thursday, starting at 12:38 pm PDT, there will be a partial solar eclipse visible from far-Eastern Russia and much of North America. A partial solar eclipse occurs when, from the perspective of Earth, the Moon covers part of the Sun, but not all of it. Also, in order to safely view this eclipse, you need viewing glasses or a pinhole projector. 

Sources:

http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2014-october-23

[universally-awesome]

We discovered what happens when you stick a can with a small amount of boiling water into a bowl of ice water during AP Chemistry today. This is a result of Gay-Lussac's gas law where the water vapor in the can is the gas with constant volume and as the temperature decreased, the pressure of the gas decreased with it. This combined with the outside pressure of Earth's atmosphere forces the can to contract

[universally-awesome]

What if the Moon disappeared?

So I was watching one of the newest episodes of Doctor Who, “Kill the Moon” (no spoilers in this post, I promise), and it got me thinking “What if the moon disappeared?” Well, turns out that the effects would be pretty bad. First, you’re probably thinking tides because the Moon is responsible for them, but so is the sun; so tides would only be about 40% as large, but they would still occur. Also, due to the light the moon gives off, sky-watching would be amazing if there were no moon, so it would seem like a pretty sweet deal. Now you're probably thinking, "What do you mean 'pretty bad'? Having no moon would be okay." The worst has yet to come.

The Moon also gives off light that helps nocturnal animals see, without said moon, the food chain would be drastically altered, and in more ways than one. Most scientists agree that the moon is responsible for Earth's stable axial tilt, and without it, there would be some pretty drastic climate change, which might cause most life to go extinct and alter the food chain even more. Not only this, but the moon is even responsible for Earth's current rotation speed on its axis (23 hours and 56 minutes); with no moon, one day could be as short as 8 hours long. Even though these effects wouldn't happen immediately, they would still cause a huge problem for future Earth.

Obviously, the moon isn't going to just disappear, but it is actually moving away from us. The moon has been calculated to move away from Earth by 3.8 centimeters each year and by 600 million CE, it will be too far away for total solar eclipses to occur. Either way, the moon isn't going away anytime soon, so get out and enjoy the moonlit night sky!

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMlrdUNb1is

http://www.astronomytoday.com/astronomy/earthmoon.html

http://www.spaceanswers.com/solar-system/will-the-moon-ever-leave-earths-orbit/

http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2006/faq.php

[noradrenaline]

[edwardspoonhands]

Also, that Cat’s periodic table is missing an entire row, and it’s model of the atom is woefully out of date. Pusheen the Cat, more like Pusheen the limits of scientific accuracy!

[asapscience]

lol

[edwardspoonhands]

Wait, mass but no volume? Wouldn't an infinite density cause problems in some of the equations?

Yup! For example…why isn’t every electron a black hole? 

This article from Fermilab actually does a pretty good example of explaining it.

[edwardspoonhands]

Whoa could you elaborate on electrons having mass but no volume? I never heard that before, and I don't know if this is supposed to be pretty basic knowledge or something, but I am super fascinated.

"An electron has a strong charge, as strong as a proton, and a tiny mass but not non-existent like the photon. And you might want to take a seat now, ‘cause this might blow your mind, it has a mass and charge but not, apparently, a size."

From my song, “The Universe is Weird” available on my album “Incongruent.” :-)

As for how this is possible…*shrug* - “the universe doesn’t exist in any way we can conceive it.” 

[edwardspoonhands]

Is it possible for something to have volume but no mass or mass but no volume?

Electrons definitely have mass but no volume. And you could certainly imagine a theoretical volume that contained no mass (though I’m not sure where you’d find such a volume as, even in space, there are quite a lot of atoms and particles floating around.)

So…yes?

[universally-awesome]

What is your personal blog, i would love to follow you.

While I do not feel comfortable sharing that information with an anonymous user, you are more than welcome to follow this blog if the content I post interests you

[universally-awesome]

Is Pluto a Planet?

Ever since we discovered Pluto on 18 February 1930, we thought of it as the 9th planet in our solar system; at least until August 2006 when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided that in order for a planet to be a planet, it has to do 3 things

Orbit its star (√)

Be spherical or close to it (√)

Clear the space in which it orbits (X)

Unfortunately, Pluto is the second-largest object in the Kuiper Belt which is an asteroid belt on the outer edge of the solar system, and thus has not cleared most of the debris it would've needed to to become a planet.

Also notice that I said Pluto is only the second-largest object in the Kuiper Belt; the largest is actually Eris, a dwarf planet about 27% larger than Pluto. So people would argue that if Pluto is a planet, so should Eris. In fact, there are several other celestial bodies in the solar system that are comparable in size to Pluto that could be classified as a planet.

On the other hand, we don't really know what a planet is in the grand scheme of things. We seem to have an okay grasp on what a planet is within our own solar system; as for other star systems, we've only just recently began to have a look at exoplanets and until we can study them better, we won't have a strong definition of "planet". So other people argue we should call Pluto a planet until we have a better idea of what a planet is. 

This is what three scientists also argued about during a debate held at Harvard on 18 September about what a planet is. Dr. Owen Gingerich argued that "planet" is a culturally defined word that has changed over time and Pluto should be a planet, while Dr. Gareth Williams stands by the IAU's definition and Pluto should not be a planet. Dr. Dimitar Sasselov claims that because Pluto is a "spherical lump of matter that formed around stars or stellar remnants," it is a planet. 

So the general consensus seems to be that Pluto should be reinstated as a planet, however, this debate will rage on, especially as the New Horizons spacecraft flies by Pluto in July 2015 and with the upcoming IAU General Assembly in Honolulu the following month. Will Pluto be our ninth planet once again? Only time will tell.

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/02/tech/innovation/is-pluto-a-planet/index.html

http://www.space.com/3948-dwarf-planet-outweighs-pluto.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/02/pluto-planet-solar-system/16578959/

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/10/pluto_planet_debate_harvard.html

[wefuckinglovescience]

Wait, what?

[asapscience]

Chemistry cat has gone too far this time. 

[universally-awesome]

So... here's a philosophical one for you: Is math an human-made abstraction that models the universe, or is math a fundamental building block of the universe? ;-)

I have discovered from my research that this is a pretty difficult question to answer. For starters, there are the mathematical realists who claim that we humans discovered math and it is an important part of the universe that would exist whether we were here or not. This is the theory accepted by most mathematicians and people in general because it hurts to think about the alternative, but I will do so anyways. Now we have the anti-realists that claim math is an invention of the human mind and without us, there would be no math. This would be nice for some middle school students that don't like their math class, but math not existing turns out to bring up some pretty interesting questions. For example, would numbers exist? Would there actually be 7 zebras if we weren't around to count said zebras? Truthfully, I don't think there even is an answer to this question because even if math is an invention of the human mind, there would be no way to test it because we're humans. Unless multiple intelligent organisms of different species show up and all of them have no concept of math, there is no way to know for sure. Good question

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How a movie changed one man’s vision forever

Bruce Bridgeman lived with a flat view of the world, until a trip to the cinema unexpectedly made him see the world in 3D. The question is how it happened.

An article from the BBC in 2012 on how a man with no depth-perception started seeing in 3D after watching a 3D movie

[scishow]

Why are eggs shaped weird?

There are two questions here…first, what’s the evolutionary advantage to having egg-shaped eggs.

We’re not precisely sure but there are two prevailing theories. First, the “egg” shape is a sphere tapered to a point on one end creating a kind of wedge. The muscles inside the bird squeeze down on that wedge to push the egg out blunt-end first. A sphere would be much more difficult to squeeze out. (Not that either way sounds particularly fun to me.)

Second, a spherical egg would be able to roll forever in any given direction while an egg-shaped egg, when shoved, rolls in a circle around a central point, which would increase the likelihood that eggs would stay in a nest. This theory is reinforced by the fact that cliff-dwelling birds have an even more pronounced egg shape. 

The other question in your question is how do birds make their eggs egg-shaped. Obviously, if it were left up to simplicity, the egg would be a perfect sphere. Unfortunately, I do not know the mechanics of how this shape is actually achieved inside of a bird…and I really would like to know. 

-Hank